


The fear (it fills my lungs)

by Maymo



Series: Tails and Whiskers [1]
Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Also there's a cat, Blood, Emotional Hurt, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Im actually not entirely sure, Is there actual comfort?, Its just Scout trying to figure out his trauma, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Post Comics, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, anyone not tagged makes only a very brief appearance, because why not, i don't know what to tag, no more than in-game or in the comics, which he doesn't think he has
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:28:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27960809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maymo/pseuds/Maymo
Summary: The point was, Scout never got it. The being unable to breathe thing. How could a person not be able to breathe? It was such a simple thing after all, everyone knew how to breathe.Now, as he was sitting on his bed, choking and gasping for breath in the middle of the night, he finally got it.
Relationships: Medic & Scout (Team Fortress 2), Scout & Spy (Team Fortress 2)
Series: Tails and Whiskers [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2112465
Comments: 12
Kudos: 59





	The fear (it fills my lungs)

**Author's Note:**

> I'm gonna say it now, I am primarily an artist and not a writer, so if this isn't the best work, it's because I've spent most of my life using a pen to make pictures instead of writing. 
> 
> And I'm also warning you guys now, Scout doesn't have a very fun time in this, though I did try to balance out the angst with a bit of fluff. Just to be clear, I do not struggle with any of the issues described in this fic, but I tried to get it as close to how it actually is. If you feel like something is not very accurate feel free to tell me, I'm always willing to improve.
> 
> Warning for graphic descriptions of panic attacks, PTSD and some dissociation.

There had been this guy in Scouts class when he was younger, back when he was called Jeremy instead of Scout. He was a real scrawny kid, not that Jeremy had been any better, he was practically skin and bones at that age, though that didn’t stop him from getting into fights. But that wasn’t the point.

There was this kid, Peter, and he had a thing—a medical issue—where he couldn’t breathe quite right. He’d get these attacks, where his breath became all weird and wheezy. Asthma, they called it. He remembered how everyone, including himself sometimes, liked to pick on Peter.

Of course in school everyone picked on everyone—hell, people picked on Jeremy constantly and he picked on them right back—that was just how school worked where he lived. But Peter, well he—he was the smallest, so he couldn’t really protect himself, and he wore these big glasses and weird clothes, and he couldn’t even _breathe_ correctly. So they would chase him around and steal his inhaler, just so they could watch him sit on the floor crying and gasping for breath. They thought it was funny. Jeremy thought it was funny too, at least until he got to know Peter.

Peter—he was real smart. And whenever he saw Jeremy struggling to get his schoolwork done, back when he still tried, he would sit down beside him and quietly explain the problem. Even if Jeremy had chased him around the previous day or poked him in the sides in that same class, or stolen his glasses. And he never made fun of Jeremy for not getting the easiest things, for not being able to read properly. And after a while Jeremy grew to like Peter. He was a nice kid, albeit quiet, the complete opposite of Jeremy.

So Jeremy started standing up for him.

It was just another reason for Jeremy to get into fights, not that he really needed one, but Peter appreciated it nonetheless, or at least, Jeremy thought he did. Peter never really thanked him for it, but whenever Jeremy helped him out, he’d give him a grateful smile. And that was good enough for him.

For a little while it actually felt like he had a real friend. It was the two of them—Jeremy and Peter—against the world. And then Peter moved away…

Jeremy stopped trying to do well in school soon after that. Because without Peters wheezy breaths and quiet explanations beside him, there was no point. He accepted the fact that he was too dumb for school and instead threw himself into fights. It was the thing he was actually good at. That and running. But that’s beside the point.

The point was, Scout never got it. The being unable to breathe thing. How could a person not be able to breathe? It was such a simple thing after all, everyone knew how to _breathe_.

Now, as he was sitting on his bed, choking and gasping for breath in the middle of the night, he finally got it. In this moment knowing _how_ to do it didn’t help him at all because no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t pull in a breath. His chest was rising and falling rapidly, but no air entered his lungs. It was like he was drowning on dry land.

His chest felt so tight and he couldn’t stop his arms from shaking, and his heart was pounding a million miles a minute. He thought it was going to burst out of his chest. It felt like the worst thing he had ever experienced.

It felt like _dying._

He would know. Scout had died plenty of times after all, but even that couldn’t quite compare to what he was feeling now. He would have preferred dying over this, whatever _it_ was, any day. He wondered if this is what Peter had felt when he started wheezing and gasping for breath. If it was this bad, or maybe even worse.

Scout couldn’t imagine anything feeling worse than this.

The room felt stiflingly hot, yet the sweat that clung to his skin was so, so cold. The walls were closing in and what little air was left in the room was surely running out. Scout had never been claustrophobic, and logically he knew that the room he was in was plenty big, and the walls couldn’t just _move_ , but in that moment all he felt was pure terror.

At one point he realized that his vision had gone blurry with tears and, ridiculously, the one thing that came to his mind was how good it was that this was happening in his room where the rest of the team couldn’t see. How embarrassing it would be if the guys saw him like this—sitting on his bed, choking on air, with tears streaming down his face.

They would think he was a baby. They already treated him like a kid, since he was the youngest. He didn’t mind it much, most of the time. It reminded him of home, of his brothers.

But this. This would be a whole new level of low that he didn’t want to sink to. He could already imagine what they would say.

‘ _Suck it up soldier, you think people could afford to cry in the war?_ ’ Or, ‘ _This is no place for babies, if cannot handle, should best leave._ ’

He would not go through that.

Scout wasn’t sure how much time had passed when he finally, _finally_ , managed to pull in a breath. By then he was so tired he was about ready to immediately pass out. Exhaustion clung to his bones like water to wet clothes. He still felt shaky. Unsteady. Like the panic would come back at any second and this time he would suffocate for real.

The rest of the base was quiet, apart from the usual ambience. It wasn’t often that the base was this silent during the night though. Someone was always doing something, didn’t matter what time it was, so the silence felt a bit weird, but it wasn’t entirely unwelcome. It meant that Scout was truly the only one awake in this moment. That what he had just experienced would stay safe and sound in his room.

He was about to go back to sleep, having mostly calmed down and still wanting to catch a few hours of sleep before he had to get up for fighting, but something caught his attention.

The base being so quiet meant that it was extremely easy to pick up on any sound that was out of place. Scout was well accustomed to the sounds that the base made itself, like the air conditioning or the clock that sat on his bedside table, or the occasional beeping of the machines that powered the building.

There was a sound coming from the other end of the room that should not have been there. It sounded like fabric being swept across the floor back and forth and was interrupted by a quiet tap every third or fourth sweep.

Scout held his breath, heartbeat increasing rapidly.

First thing that came to his mind was that Spy had somehow managed to sneak into his room and had sat there the whole time watching Scout have a freak-out. In which case he was absolutely screwed. But upon closer consideration he realized that it didn’t really make sense.

Sure, Spy was known to sneak around and snoop through other peoples stuff in the hopes of finding good blackmail material or to satisfy his own curiosity, but as far as Scout knew, he didn’t do it in the middle of the night. In fact, Scout was pretty sure that Spy was one of the few people who actually used the night time to sleep. Which meant that it was something else making that noise in Scouts room.

The noise that he could no longer hear.

He strained his ears.

Silence.

Then a muted _thump_ , like something with a little weight behind it had been set down. He saw something shift in the corner of his room. Slowly getting in a more upright position he strained his eyes in the direction of the movement. As his eyes adjusted he could start to make out a shape lying near the corner of the room, where he kept his boxes of comics and sketchbooks.

He reached for the bat that he kept next to his bed.

If that thing was one of Soldiers raccoons he wanted something to protect himself with. And if that wasn’t a raccoon, then he _really_ wanted something to protect himself with. But right as he was about to bravely (or stupidly) charge at the thing that was trespassing in his space it shifted again and oh—

It was a cat.

Two green eyes blinked up from where it was lying on the floor, one a bit more squinted than the other. The cat seemed to realize that it had been spotted as it decided to get up from its spot near the wall of the room and make its way over to Scout, who was still sitting on the bed.

“Man, you scared me,” Scout huffed. “Where’d ya come from anyways?” he asked, just a tad bit of annoyance seeping into his voice. That thing had almost scared him to death.

There wasn’t anywhere near the base where a cat could stay, and the nearest town was quite a way away. He supposed that the cat might have been living around the base. It was big enough for even Scout, who had spent the last five or so years living here, to not know about every nook and cranny, much less one in which a cat could fit into. But it was still very unusual, to say the least. The cat just paused by the foot of the bed as if considering the question and then gracefully hopped up onto the bed.

“Whoa, wait, what if you have fleas?” Scout exclaimed, scooting back from the cat just a little. The cat only looked at him. Then it stretched in a graceful arch and made its way across the bed to Scout.

Scout just stared. He had never had an animal before and the only cats that he’d interacted with were the strays that lived on the streets back home. And they hadn’t been very friendly, hissing and growling when people came too close, ready to run but also unafraid to fight if it came down to it. Scout had learned early on to let the cats do their own thing, to not bother them. He still had a scar on his forearm from that one time he decided to try and pick one up. It hadn’t been pretty and he hadn’t tried doing something like that ever again.

So when the cat pressed up against his side, purring softly he didn’t know what to do.

“Promise not to scratch me if I pet you?” he asked the cat. The cat only purred louder in answer, still nuzzling against Scouts side.

Taking that as a yes Scout slowly lifted up his right arm and gingerly ran it across the cats back. The fur felt a bit rough under his hand, but it wasn’t unpleasant to the touch. The cat seemed to appreciate Scouts petting, arching its back as Scout ran his hand over it again.

The cat’s presence was very calming, the repetitive motion of petting beginning to lull Scout to sleep. So he settled back into bed and the cat shifted with him, laying down next to him above the covers, still purring. And with the soft purring coming from beside him, the vibrations reverberating through his entire body, and the cat a comforting weight by his side, Scout finally fell back into dreamless sleep.

* * *

When he woke in the morning the cat was gone.

At first he thought that he had dreamed everything that had happened during the night, but the feeling of choking on air was still fresh in his mind. As was the fear that had pooled in his stomach, not unlike the butterflies you get when you’re filled with joy, except instead of feeling nice, it felt absolutely awful.

That, and he still felt extremely exhausted. It was the kind of tired that he felt after a full week of non-stop battles, or after running a hundred laps around the base. It was the kind of tired he shouldn’t have been feeling after having a weird breakdown in the middle of the night.

Whatever. It didn’t matter whether he was tired or not, he still had to get up. The team couldn’t go into the fight without him. He would just drink a few extra cans of Bonk! to make up for his lack of energy

Scout threw on his regular work uniform and went down to the kitchen, keeping an eye out for the cat the whole way there.

As he neared the entrance of the room he could hear loud noises slipping through the doorway and the sound of cutlery hitting plates, which meant that most of the team was probably already up and going through their morning routines. Which meant that he had slept longer than usual, as he was usually one of the first up in the morning out of everyone else. Engie was the only one who regularly got up around the same time as Scout.

Sometimes Medic was up as well. Or rather, he hadn’t even gone to sleep yet, instead spending all night doing research or paperwork or god knows what else.

Scout entered the kitchen and headed straight for the fridge, hoping to down at least one can of his energy drink before anyone tried to interact with him in his current state of exhaustion. As he made his way through the room he noticed that indeed most of the team was already here, eating breakfast and discussing battle strategies.

The only people missing were Sniper and Spy. It wasn’t uncommon for Sniper to be the last one to join the team in the morning, sometimes not even showing up at all preferring to get ready in the privacy of his camper van. And Spy came and went as he pleased.

He managed to get all the way across the room and to the fridge without being noticed. Usually Scout didn’t mind getting attention from the other members of the team, often making himself as loud as possible on purpose to get noticed. He loved attention, having spent most of his childhood always overshadowed by his older brothers.

Not this time though. He didn’t want to be noticed for as long as possible, the events of last night making him squirm even though he knew that no one else had seen or heard what happened. He felt like he did in school, when he misread the simple words, and everyone else snickered and whispered, pointing their fingers at him, quietly mocking him. It always made him wish for the ground to open up and swallow him whole.

As he opened the fridge to finally get a drink, he kept one ear open for the conversation that was happening at the table. Though the strategy in battles stayed more or less the same every time, it was good to still talk things through, and he didn’t want to miss anything important.

From the sound of it, they had payload today, which meant that he could relax. While Scout would still need to try and do his best out on the field, the attention wouldn’t be on him the way it was during capture the flag. He could take it easy today, see if running too much would bring on another attack like what happened during the night.

He remembered that Peter had trouble running because of his asthma, getting winded really fast and sometimes even triggering an attack, and if it was an asthma attack that he had gotten, he would have to keep an eye on his own breathing.

“Scout, there ya are! Where’ve you been this whole morning?” asked Engie, startling Scout out of his thoughts and making him choke on his drink.

As he was coughing and spluttering he felt his heart skip a beat with the memory of last night, definitely not wanting a repeat, but feeling powerless to stop it if it did come. Thankfully the coughing fit was over as soon as it started and Scout tried to act as nonchalant as possible, not wanting to give away how scared he’d been for those few seconds.

“Oh I jus’ did a few extra laps on my run this morning. Gotta keep in shape, ya know?” he replied, voice sounding just a tad bit rougher than he would have liked.

“You? Out of shape? I think you’re the last person who should be worried about goin’ out of shape,” said Engie, giving him a weird look.

Scout shrugged. “Better safe than sorry,” he said before finishing off the rest of his drink and immediately grabbing another one out of the fridge.

“So, what’re we doin’ today?” Scout asked, walking over to the table, can of Bonk! in one hand. He sat down in the empty seat next to Pyro, free hand immediately flying towards the sandwich which he spotted sitting on the plate in the middle of the table. He hadn’t noticed how hungry he was until his eyes had landed on food.

Engie filled him in on what he had missed (which wasn’t anything, really) while he was slowly munching on his sandwich. They were doing payload the whole week and all he really had to do was run in every now and then and try and cause some general chaos amongst the enemy team. Be a nuisance essentially, and boy was he good at that.

There was still some time left before they had to go get ready, so, when Scout finished his sandwich and everyone else was done eating as well no-one moved to leave just yet. Medic and Heavy were discussing something in low muttering tones, too quiet for Scout to hear over the ruckus that Soldier and Demo were making.

From the sound of it they were in a very heated discussion about how effective the use of trained bears be in combat, which, knowing Soldier, was not the weirdest thing anyone on the base had discussed with him. Engie and Pyro were just watching, opting to stay out of the argument, probably out of fear of getting hit in the head by either a bottle or a shovel, depending on which side of the argument they were to take.

It was listening to this conversation that reminded Scout about something he had been meaning to ask the team himself.

“Have you guys seen a cat round the base?” he asked, raising his voice just a little, so he could be heard over the argument happening at the other end of the table.

All eyes turned on him.

“A cat,” repeated Medic, his conversation with Heavy forgotten.

Scout nodded.

“On this base,” he said again.

Scout gave another nod.

“Now why would there be a cat on the base?” asked Engie, voice filled with confusion and intrigue.

“I just—“Scout hesitated, fiddling with his dog tags, “—I thought I saw a cat when I was going for a run the other night.”

At this Pyro seemed to light up, happily clapping their hands, loud, incomprehensible mumbles coming from behind the mask.

Soldier on the other hand seemed to have the exact opposite reaction, as he loudly clambered onto his chair and stomped one leg, boot and all, onto the table, ignoring the loud complains from the others about putting feet on the dining table.

“You might have thought that was a cat, but you should have known better than that, soldier,” he exclaimed loudly, foot still up on the table, despite Engies and Demos combined efforts to remove it.

“What’re you talking about?” Scout asked visibly confused and also amazed by the immovable object that was Soldiers leg.

“It was clearly the enemy Spy disguised as a cat!” Soldier yelled, his whole body leaning in the direction of Scout, spit flying from his mouth.

Everyone seemed to pause at that.

“Can they do that?” Scout heard Demo whisper to himself.

“No, we cannot,” came the reply from somewhere behind Scout, followed by the sound of Spy dropping his cloak. “And I can assure you, the BLU Spy is nowhere near our base,” he continued, pulling a cigarette out of his disguise case and lighting it.

“As for what the boy saw, it was probably some other desert creature he mistook for a cat. Wouldn’t be the first time that has happened,” Spy finished, throwing a smug look Scouts way.

“Hey, that was one time!” Scout squeaked indignantly, ears burning and face turning a darker shade of red.

“Yes, and it almost cost you your hand,” Spy pointed out, voice filled with amusement.

“Well how the hell was I supposed to know that was a coyote and not a dog? I didn’t grow up in the desert,” Scout replied, cheeks still burning. He was beginning to wish that he hadn’t mentioned the cat at all.

“Yes, yes, we’ve all heard it before. As much as I would like to keep teasing you and your absolute incompetence in all matters of life, I came here to remind you all that the match is about to start,” Spy said, turning towards the exit and briskly walking away.

Everyone else seemed to come back to their senses, conversations about cats and bears forgotten, as they packed up their things and followed Spy to the exit. Soldier finally clambered down from the chair, leaving a nice, muddy boot print on the table, Medic glaring at him from where he was standing.

Soldier either pretended not to see it, or he actually didn’t see it, hurrying after the rest of the team, eager to get to fighting. 

Scout drank the remainder of his Bonk! and followed everyone else to the battle field, thoughts of cats and choked breaths lingering on his mind.

* * *

There were no incidents with Scout’s breathing on the first day of battle, nor were there any on the second or third day. In fact, Scout went the whole week without anything besides the occasional breathlessness that came with spending the whole day actively running.

So it probably wasn’t asthma. Unless it was a very weird kind of asthma.

There might have been a few times when he felt his breath hitch and his chest felt a bit tighter than usual, but it was nowhere near as bad as the attack he had gotten the other night.

He also saw no sign of the cat that had snuck into his room that very night. Scout was beginning to think that he might have hallucinated that whole interaction, what with the lack of oxygen that his brain had suffered. Lack of air could cause something like that, right? He’d have to ask Medic someday.

Admittedly, he was disappointed. There was something exciting about the thought of having a secret cat that no-one else knew about. Something nice about the thought of having someone to talk to without having to worry about being annoying.

Scout had always wanted a pet when he was younger, but his Ma never agreed, saying that she already had enough mouths to feed and that she didn’t need another one to worry about. Scout got it, he really did, but that didn’t get rid of the disappointment that took root deep in his stomach.

The same disappointment he was feeling now as he went up to his room for the fifth day in a row, with the hope of seeing two green eyes peering at him from the corner of his room, but finding nothing but the usual mess. He let out a quiet sigh. Picking through the clothes that covered the floor he made his way over to his bed, planning on drawing till dinnertime.

Except exhaustion still clung to his bones, having never really left from when it had set in on Monday morning. That, and he hadn’t managed to sleep too well the past few nights either, having trouble falling asleep and waking up randomly in the middle of the night, faint traces of fear lingering in his mind.

Getting nightmares wasn’t uncommon. He usually woke up at least once a week from some sort of bad dream and he knew that some of the other guys suffered from the same problem. It was to be expected really, their job included going out every day and dying, and while respawn was programmed to erase the memories of the very last seconds before death (so they wouldn’t go completely crazy) it didn’t get rid of the pain suffered when dying took longer than just a few seconds, or when they didn’t die at all.

So yeah, nightmares weren’t uncommon, but Scout had never gotten them this often. And most of the time they were very clear, not vague and barely there. It was weird.

He had miraculously managed to ignore it up till now, falling back on energy drinks and naps and somehow pulling through the battles without his scores dropping too badly. All of that had slowly been piling up over the week, plus the added exhaustion that came with spending six hours constantly fighting every day. So now, with the caffeine and adrenaline gone from his body, it had finally caught up with him and he found his legs dragging across the floor, eyes heavy with missed sleep.

The bed seemed to be miles away, his walk towards it seemingly lasting forever. When he finally managed to sit down, the mattress felt like the softest cloud to his muddled brain, and all thoughts about drawing were gone from his mind. His bones felt like they were filled with led, dragging him down and making him sink deeper and deeper into the mattress. He found himself blinking up at the ceiling, not having noticed that he had laid down. He blinked again and the time between each blink seemed to get longer and longer, until he could no longer keep his eyes open at all, choosing to instead embrace the darkness that now surrounded him.

Scout was running.

He was running and he didn’t know where he was going or why he was running, all he knew was that he couldn’t stop, couldn’t slow down, he had to keep going, going, going—

Blue eyes.

Icy blue, cold like the snow, like the Arctic Ocean, like the feeling of death. Cold, yet burning in the back of his head, getting closer and closer, the coldness _stingingburningstabbing_ the back of his neck, numbing his fingers, making his labored breath cloud in front of him.

He was running but he wasn’t getting away, each step bringing him closer to… to—bringing him closer instead of further away…

He was good at running, that was the one thing he was good at, but he was failing. He was failing and _it_ was going to get him, and he couldn’t even do the one thing, the _one thing_ that he could do well.

It was close now—so close and there was nothing he could _do_. He was slipping, legs numb with the cold or the exhaustion, or maybe something else entirely, but it didn’t matter because it was so _close_ and his steps were unsteady, making him falter.

His skin felt wrong. It felt muted. Everything around him felt muted, like it wasn’t quite there, but it pressed up all around him all the same and it felt wrong and bad _badbad._

There was a sound behind him. Incomprehensible, like humming, like high pitched whirring, like nails on chalkboard, like Peters wheezing breath and like a hundred other things. Like purring, but wrong. Like his ma’s voice, but wrong. Like the sound of his scattergun, but wrong.

Everything was muted, his mind, his fingers, his _blood_ , except for the sound. It felt like a train, slamming into his mind, into his body, so loud, _so loud,_ then retreating.

It was all _wrong—_

The sound rose and sunk, like waves in the ocean. Small and innocent one moment, big and dangerous the next. It beat in rhythm with his footsteps, seemingly far away, but getting closer, getting _louder,_ until it surrounded him, unbearably loud, piercing his mind like a bullet, like an arrow, like a knife—

Scout woke with a loud gasp, heart pounding in his chest. He lurched upright, one hand flying to his chest, breathing unsteadily. There was fear lingering in his mind, making his thoughts disorganized and messy and for a few seconds he couldn’t tell where he was. It was dark and it took a while for his eyes to adjust to the dimness of the room, but eventually he realized that he was in his room, sitting on his bed still in his work clothes.

He’d fallen asleep.

He’d fallen asleep and what he saw was just a dream, and he was fine.

He didn’t feel fine. His breathing was still unsteady and his heartbeat wasn’t quite back to normal and his ears were ringing with a cacophony of sounds. So he took a moment to steady himself, to calm his breathing. Waited for his ears to stop ringing.

Except they didn’t.

He waited for a minute, then two, then three and still there was a sound squeaking in his ears, high pitched and annoying. It stopped and started without any discernable pattern and Scout quickly grew tired of it, face falling into a grimace, both hands rising to cover his ears in the hopes that it would help.

And surprisingly, it did. As soon as his hands were over his ears the sound became muted. Which meant that the ringing wasn’t something that he was imagining, but instead coming from somewhere in close proximity to him. So he uncovered his ears, straining to hear the sound that was so annoying just a second ago, but now had turned intriguing.

For a little while there was silence and then it started up again, coming from somewhere to his right. He turned, fast enough to get a sharp pain in his neck, but it didn’t matter because there was a cat, _the cat,_ sitting outside his window, scratching at the glass.

Scout flew out of the bed, first stumbling to the other side of the bed to turn on his bedside lamp and then quickly making his way over to the window, in fear of the cat suddenly disappearing. The cat did not, in fact, disappear.

Instead it patiently waited for Scout to open his window and then it marched right in like it had been living in this room its whole life, instead of only showing up for the second time, ever (at least as far as Scout knew). Scout closed the window and turned to look at the cat who had already made its way over to the bed and settled in amongst his pillows.

The cat was much scruffier than Scout had imagined.

When he saw it five days ago the room had been dark and he hadn’t bothered to turn on the light, so all he had seen were the green eyes and the vague, cat like form. Now, in the light of his lamp he could see that the cat was definitely old, fur grey and ragged, even matted in some places. The cat was quite bony too, ribs visible through the thin fur. Its left eye seemed to be permanently squinting, likely because of some older injury, and one of its front teeth were missing which made its mouth look crooked, like it was turned up in a small, permanent grin.

It definitely wasn’t the prettiest cat, not by a long shot, but Scout didn’t mind. He had wanted a cat, and a cat he got, however ratty and old it was.

The cat meowed and even that sounded old—more a deep croak than anything else—but the cat looked so earnest, with its crooked face and green eyes, that Scout found it more adorable than grating.

”You know, for a little while there you made me think I was goin’ crazy,” Scout said, moving to sit on the bed next to the cat. The cat only blinked, unbothered by what it had or hadn’t made Scout think.

Scout looked at the cat. The cat stared back.

”You’re one ugly cat, ya know that? No offense,” Scout said, going to scratch the cat under its ragged chin. The cat didn’t seem to take offence, merely stretching its neck out further towards Scouts wandering fingers.

Scout took this moment to think back to the dream that he had woken up from so violently. The past week his dreams had been vague and for the most part, he couldn’t remember what they were about at all. He seemed to recall only feelings and sensations, most of which were unpleasant, so he hadn’t bothered lingering on them for too long. This time the dream, while still very abstract, was at least quite clear in his mind, though he could feel it slowly fading from memory, as dreams often did.

He wasn’t one to think too much about dreams and what they meant, had never been any good at finding hidden meanings and noticing the symbolism in things. To him dreams were just that, dreams. Something that occurred when he went to sleep, something to fill the emptiness that came with the lack of conscious thought. He was starting to reconsider, the vagueness and abstraction of it all leading him to think that it did have some deeper meaning after all. Made him think that maybe his subconscious was trying to tell him something.

Either that, or this was just what his dreams were like when he was beyond exhausted. Or he was getting sick. He always got weird dreams when he got sick. He hoped for his sake it was the second option, since he didn’t want to spend any time trying to decipher whatever it was that his brain was trying to tell him, nor did he want to get sick, having enough things to deal with already.

He was startled out of his thoughts by the sound of his stomach rumbling, which in turn made him look at the clock sitting on the bedside table, which made him realize that it was already after seven pm and he was currently missing dinner.

His eyes widened in realization, feet scrambling to get him moving. The sudden motion startled the cat, who had been contently sitting on the bed, enjoying the scratches that Scout was so willingly providing it with. It scrambled up, eyes wide with confusion, fur standing on end.

“Sorry, sorry, I gotta go,” Scout muttered, taking large steps towards the exit of his room. “But I’ll be right back, and I’ll bring you some food, so don’t go anywhere!” he yelled as he left the room, throwing the door shut with a loud _bang_ and rushing down to the kitchen.

* * *

Thankfully Scout didn’t end up missing anything, and he only got a few raised eyebrows when he stumbled his way into the kitchen, looking for all the world like he had seen Spy slip and get a face full of the floor. After five years of working and living together no-one really questioned the weird quirks of the other team members, Scouts weird bursts of random energy and hyperactivity included.

After dinner, while everyone else was preparing for the weekly night of drinking and poker, Scout managed to sneak a few strips of meat out of the fridge to offer to the cat. When asked if he would be joining the team for poker he muttered some excuse about having promised to call his Ma, and rushed back up to his room.

He never really was one for poker anyway, most of the time joining only in the drinking part, choosing to watch instead of actually playing. To be completely honest, he still hadn’t entirely gotten how the game worked even though it had been explained to him a dozen times. It was just another thing that he was too dumb to understand.

When he got back to the room, the cat was still there, having settled back down on the bed, patiently waiting for Scout to return. It didn’t look up when Scout entered the room, the only indication that it _had_ heard him being the flicker of its ears.

It did perk up when Scout pulled the food he had snatched out of his pocket, this time lifting its head and sniffing at the air, then getting up from its spot on the bed and stretching out its legs, claws flexing.

Apparently the cat wasn’t picky at all. As soon as Scout had set the food down, placing a sheet of paper under it, the cat was there, gobbling it up with incredible speed. He supposed that a cat living in the desert probably couldn’t afford to be picky if it wanted to last more than a few weeks.

He also found out that the cat didn’t like being touched while it ate. It hunched around the food, a low rumble sounding from where it sat when Scout tried nearing his hand to give it a few scratches, eyes suddenly full of mistrust. It reminded him of the stray cats back home. Made him realize that this one was probably a stray too, not that that was any big revelation. There wasn’t anyone else living out here that could take care of a cat after all.

Until now.

Letting the cat eat in peace, Scout retreated to his bed, deciding to do what he had wanted to do before—draw.

He hadn’t managed to draw for quite a while now, always busy with something else, something more important popping up whenever he sat down to draw. And whenever he did manage to sit down and pick up a pencil, he found that his head was completely empty of ideas. It frustrated him to no end.

He couldn’t even remember the last time he had properly drawn something. It was probably sometime before the whole mess with Grey Mann and his robot army. Might have been when he was in prison with Spy.

Whatever. He was going to draw now and he wasn’t going to let anything distract him.

Except as he sat on his bed, pencil in hand, he ran into the same problem as before. He had absolutely no idea what to draw. No ideas. None. He set down his pencil, sighing through his nose. He wanted to draw, he really did. It was one of the thing other than running that he truly enjoyed doing. But going through this, this _block,_ was frustrating, and it annoyed him to no end.

A loud hacking noise brought his attention back to the cat, who was still eating, head bobbing up and down as it choked down the bits of meat that were still left on the ground.

Scout picked up his pencil.

He had never been one for realism. He wasn’t bad at it per se, he just preferred a more cartoony style, something with more colors, more _pop_. Found it to be more expressive, more like him. His teachers never liked it, didn’t think it counted as art. ' _You have so much potential,_ ' they always said. ' _Why are you wasting it on this nonsense?_ '

Scout ignored them, just like he ignored everyone, who decided that they knew how he should live his life better than he did.

Pressing the pencil against the page he quickly sketched out the pose of the cat while it was still eating. When he was done with the basic construction he slowly started adding in details. He sketched in the fur, the ears, the little paws that sat tucked close to its body, making sure to get it all as close to the real thing as possible. The cat moved before he could properly finish the drawing, but he didn’t mind. The sketchiness of it helped capture the personality of the cat.

The cat was now sitting up, seemingly satisfied with its dinner. It looked up at Scout from where it sat and gave a slow blink, as if thanking him for the food. Scout quickly sketched out the face of the cat next to the previous drawing. The cat moved from where it sat, tail raised up and swinging idly. This time it didn’t go back to the bed, instead moving towards the bedside table before jumping up on it and almost knocking off the clock that sat on it.

Then it just sat there, staring at Scout as if saying, ‘ _come on, try and draw me._ ’ So Scout kept working on the face he had just sketched in, glancing at the cat every now and then to add more and more details to his drawing. This close up he could see that there were a few patches of fur missing on the cat’s nose and above its left eye, faint scars marring its skin, giving it a more feral look.

Once he was satisfied with how the drawing looked, he showed it to the cat, proud of his work.

“Pretty good, right?” he asked, grinning. The cat looked at it for a few seconds, then gave a small flick of its tail before climbing down from its perch and into Scouts lap.

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” he laughed, putting away the sketchbook and settling back against the wall, hand moving to run across the cats back.

“I should probably give you a name, now that I’ve given you food, right?” Scout said after a few minutes of silence, still petting the cat. The cat didn’t answer, instead just happily purring away, enjoying the petting he was currently receiving.

“Fluffy? No, that doesn’t really apply to you. Furball? Oh, what about Toothless?” he said, more to himself than to the cat. “Toothless seems a bit misleading, since your missing only one tooth.”

“How about just Cat?” he said after a few more minutes of running through all the cat names he knew. Cat seemed appropriate enough, since everyone on base was called based on what they did, and a cat was probably good at being a cat and doing what cats did. The cat seemed to agree, choosing that exact moment to give a more high pitched purr and snuggle closer to Scouts stomach.

“Cat it is, then,” Scout said, moving to scratch under Cats chin.

* * *

Cat stayed in Scouts room that night, but when Scout woke in the morning he was gone once again. But this time when evening came Cat was back, sitting outside the window, patiently waiting for Scout to let him in.

“You clearly have a way in and out of this room that doesn’t include the window, so why do you use the window to come in?” Scout had asked, opening said window, to let him in. Cat had just jumped down and gone straight to the place where Scout had placed the food down the previous day, looking at him expectantly. It seemed that food was what had solidified Cat’s presence in Scout’s room, because while Cat was always gone by morning, he was always back after a day or two, always sitting behind the window, waiting to be let in.

Scout also seemed to sleep easier with Cat sleeping beside him, as if Cat was somehow keeping the bad dreams at bay with his presence alone. Not that he didn’t get them at all. He still woke in the middle of the night, mind plagued by nightmares more often than not. But he found that with Cat sleeping next to him it was much easier to calm down, easier to come back from that panicky-alert feeling.

It seemed that Cat could also sense when Scout was in need of something to focus on, moving to instead sleep on top of Scouts chest, paws softly kneading the blanket. He didn’t know whether Cat was aware of what exactly he was doing, but Scout appreciated it nonetheless. On the nights when it was really bad, when he woke up with tears in his eyes, chest tight and body shaking, he rambled.

Told Cat all about his family. About his Ma and how she was the strongest, yet kindest and most caring woman he knew. About his brothers and how annoying they were, but how Scout still loved them with all his heart. Told him about growing up in Boston, about how he struggled with school. About how he got into fights with other kids. Told him about Peter.

He wondered about Peter in these moments. Wondered if maybe all this, the nightmares, the—the breathlessness, if that was because of what he’d done to Peter, and to a few other kids, before they became friends. If this was the universes way of getting back at him for that. He thought that he had made up for his mistakes when he had started standing up for Peter, but maybe not. Maybe those mistakes were not so easily corrected, not so easily forgiven.

A tiny part of Scouts brain thought that maybe he deserved this. The part that still felt guilty about the things he had done when he was younger. He had never been the nicest kid, always getting into fights, getting in trouble at school. He’d been cocky and self-confident and to be completely fair, he had been an asshole. He still kind of was. It was a part of his personality he hadn’t been able to drop. But to be fair, he’d grown up around a bunch of assholes. Hell, it was basically in his genes, with his dad being who he was (yes, he knew. He might have been dumb but he wasn’t that _dumb_ ).

So yeah, maybe Scout did deserve it. It didn’t really make it any more bearable.

Cat didn’t seem to mind Scout though, and cats were supposed to be good at telling which people were good and which were not, so maybe Scout wasn’t _that_ bad. It was a small comfort, one that he held onto tightly.

After two weeks of Cat showing up almost every day Scout realized that he was quickly running out of food to feed him and the team was getting suspicious about food disappearing so fast. The excuse that Scout was just snacking more often than usual was also quickly starting to run thin, so Scout decided to tag along with whoever it was that was going shopping to the nearest town that weekend and get some proper cat food. This got him a few raised eyebrows since usually when offered to tag along Scout very quickly declined, instead choosing to spend the day lazing around while everyone else went off to do, what essentially in Scouts mind was, a chore. That, and he just wasn’t very fond of the town of Tuefort after his last visit to that place.

This time Scout just muttered something about being out of snacks and not trusting anyone else to get the good stuff that he actually liked. That seemed to satisfy everyone well enough, so, that Saturday morning Scout found himself in the passenger seat of Engies truck trying and failing to entertain himself while they made their way over to Tuefort. He had never been one for long car rides, even if they weren’t very long. 

When they finally arrived Scout made off on his own saying that there were a few other things that he wanted to buy in addition to food (not a lie) and that he’d meet back up with Engie when it was time to go.

It took a while to locate something that resembled a Pet store and even that looked more like an abandoned shack than an actual shop. The inside was cramped, every wall and corner stacked with various animal toys, foods and accessories, which looked like they would topple over at the slightest gust of wind. The lady in charge of the shop looked like she would rather be anywhere else but there and, when Scout asked her about which out of all the various cat foods would be the best to buy, she just grunted something unhelpfully and continued picking at her nails.

Scout ended up picking the one with the brightest packaging and, at the last moment, decided to also buy one of those sticks with the feathers at the end to try and provide some entertainment for himself and for Cat when he decided to hang out in Scouts room. 

After visiting the Pet store Scout managed to quickly run to the local book store and get a few new comic book, since he was running out of things to read, and after that he even found the time to actually go to a regular shop and get some snacks before meeting up with Engie and driving back to the base.

That evening Scout found out that Cat didn’t care at all about what he ate as he barely gave the food a sniff before devouring all of it. The cat toy on the other hand…

At first Scout thought that Cat was just past the age of playing, as he instead chose to lazily nap in his favorite spot on the bed when Scout tried waving the cat toy in front of his face. But two days later, when Scout was sitting on his bed reading a comic, the quiet of the room was disturbed by, what Scout thought was Cat scratching at one of the cardboard boxes he kept in the room, only to look up and find Cat very energetically chasing a bottle cap across the room, claws scraping against the wooden floor.

“Really?” was all that Scout had said, watching in amusement as Cat chased the bottle cap under a shelf only to then look at Scout and croak out a sad little meow.

* * *

Scout was running again.

Legs burning, lungs stinging, eyes watering.

He was running through what looked like a dark tunnel, but no floor was visible below his feet, nor was there a ceiling or any walls. It was just darkness with the slightest hint of daylight shining far off in the distance.

He could feel the cold chasing after him, it’s cool hands grasping at his arms, at his clothes, trying to catch him. Trying to stop him.

There was that sound again. It was rising behind him, trying to catch up, to join the chase. It sounded even more distorted than before, not a single sound distinguishable between a thousand others. All of them meshing together in some sort of horrible symphony.

It was becoming deafening. It was the only thing he could hear. He couldn’t hear his footsteps, couldn’t hear his own heartbeat, which had been so loud in his ears just seconds ago, couldn’t even hear his own thoughts, that sound—that _horrible_ sound—drowning it all out until it was all around him. Until it was like he was in it.

Like he was _it_.

And then he was falling. Like the sound itself had shattered the surface on which he had been running, making it fall away from beneath him, making him fall along with it.

He fell in silence. As if the sound that had been deafening just moments ago hadn’t ever been there at all. The silence felt too quiet in the aftermath of the sound. It felt oppressive, stifling. When he opened his mouth in the hopes of making it just a bit more bearable by making some sort of noise no noise came out. So he tried again.

Nothing.

It was like without _the sound_ no other noise could exist, the silence too thick to penetrate. It actually felt tangible. It felt like a thick liquid, like syrup or honey, or maybe _blood_ and it stuck to his limbs and forced its way down his throat, making him choke.

No longer was he falling.

Now he was choking, choking, _choking_.

He was sitting on the cold, rough ground, something warm pooling beneath him, the same warmth filling his lungs and leaving no room for air. The coldness was back, this time a stark contrast to the warmth at his side. He looked down and oh—

It was blood. His blood. And it was flowing out of him with concerning speed, allowing the coldness to instead take its place and seep into his bones. But even though he could see it flowing from his side he could also feel it at the back of his throat, making him choke and cough, coating his pale lips a deep, dark red.

His hands reached up to his throat, clawing at it in a fruitless effort to help him pull in the much needed air.

And suddenly he was falling again, only for his fall to be broken by a rope wrapping around his throat like a snake. He kicked out his feet, trying to find something to stand on, to relieve the pressure around his neck. But there was nothing but empty air beneath him.

He moved his hands above his head, clutching at the rope, trying to pull himself up, to loosen it, only to feel it get tighter instead. He felt pressure against his chest, further preventing him from pulling in the oxygen he so desperately craved.

The rope grew tighter.

And tighter.

And _tighter_.

Like some sort of morbid neckless of death.

And then what little airflow he had left was finally completely cut off. He felt the rope tighten one last time, like it was making sure there was no chance for him to break free. And then his vision blacked out.

Scout woke already panicking, hands flying to his throat to unwind the rope that was blocking his airways, only for that panic to increase tenfold once he realized that there was no rope around his neck and that despite that, he still couldn’t breathe.

His eyes grew wide with fear, and in the hopes that it would help, he got in a more upright position. Hoped that it would help relieve the pressure on his chest. Through the fog in his mind he heard a small indignant meow, and then the pressure decreased somewhat, though he still felt like he was choking.

His limbs were going numb and his arms were shaking in front of him. In fact, his whole body had started trembling and there was a churning deep down in his stomach. Like he was sick. He was grateful for the room being dark, just the thought of bright lights shining in his eyes making him nauseous. It felt similar to being hungover after a long night of drinking, only worse. Scout had only ever been that hungover once or twice, and he’d kept an eye on his own drinking ever since, in order to prevent that from ever happening again. It didn’t prevent this, however.

There was something soft pressing against his side, but he could barely feel it. Everything felt… disconnected. Like his brain was a million miles away from his body. He was losing control and it was terrifying. There wasn’t enough oxygen entering his lungs and his vision was narrowing, like he was looking through a tunnel, the corners dark and blurry.

He was cold and he was shivering, his heartbeat beating against his chest like a hammer against wood. Like it was trying to break free. He couldn’t focus on anything, thoughts in disarray. They slipped out of his grasp like wet soap whenever he tried to focus on one for more than a few seconds.

He curled into himself. Tried to steady his breathing, which was erratic and shaky as it left his mouth. Everything felt suffocating.

He _was_ suffocating.

That thought was absolutely terrifying. It froze the blood in his veins, carved a deep pit into his stomach, squeezed his heart so tight it could barely beat. Then there was a sharp pain originating from his right side. Like a needle had been stabbed in the sensitive skin above his ribs. And for a second his thoughts cleared, mind focused on the pain.

Then he felt it again. And again. He held onto the pain like a lifeline. And slowly, ever so slowly his breathing began to even out. Feeling returned to his limbs. His mind was connected to his body once more.

He felt another sharp pain. He opened his eyes, not having noticed that they had been shut at all, and looked to his right. Cat was crouching on all fours by his side, his front paws kneading into his right side and the sharp claws piercing through the thin fabric of his shirt. He was purring.

Scout let out a shaky exhale before uncurling from his position and letting his back hit the wall behind him, impact softened by the pillows at his back. His right hand moved to scratch Cat between his ears.

“Thanks buddy,” he whispered softly, looking at the cat with a tired, thankful smile. His hand was still shaking where he was petting Cat, movement unsteady.

He had already forgotten how bad the… the attack was. How horrible it felt. He hadn’t actually gotten one since that very first time, always managing to calm himself down when his breathing began to feel shallow. He had hoped that it was a one-time thing, something he could just forget about. Didn’t want it to be a problem, because if it was a problem, he would have to deal with it. His solutions to problems were mostly “out of sight, out of mind”. It seemed that something like that couldn’t be applied to something that seemed to originate from his mind.

At first, after his suspicions of it being asthma had been cleared, he had thought that maybe it was somehow related to him dying, _actually_ dying, when they had been fighting the robots. He had gotten stabbed and he had _died,_ and then he’d gotten up like nothing had happened to him. Surely something that had killed him couldn’t be healed just like that… at least not without consequences.

Medic had looked him over after the fight had ended, had said that except for the stab wound (apparently more of a slash, really) there was nothing wrong with him. No internal bleeding, nothing that could cause permanent damage. The only thing that would remain would be the scar, since Medic didn’t have his medigun with him and therefore couldn’t heal the still open wound.

But maybe he had missed something. Maybe the damage had been too small to notice then and it had grown over time, until it finally started showing itself in the form of breathlessness, of choking on air.

Now he thought that maybe it wasn’t a physical issue at all. Maybe there was something wrong with his brain, more wrong than usually, and that was what was causing this. It would certainly explain the nightmares, which were getting more and more frequent every week, which in turn was making Scout more and more tired. There was only so much caffeine he could consume in one day.

It was finally starting to show in his scores as well and they had been steadily dropping during the last two weeks. He was sure that the others had noticed as well, but no-one had dared mention it to him just yet. It would be no surprise if he would be getting a visit from Miss Pauling within the next few weeks, unless he managed to get this _thing_ under control.

But the problem was, he didn’t know what was causing it, and he didn’t particularly want to bother Medic about it either. Mainly because he was used to dealing with problems alone and maybe, just maybe, because he felt embarrassed. But it was mainly that first thing. The second thing only made up, like, 10%, maybe even 5%... It definitely _wasn’t_ the main reason why he didn’t want to talk to Medic…

No way.

Besides, what could Medic do anyway. If there _was_ something wrong with his brain, it wasn’t like he could just fix it. He wasn’t a shrink. Not that Scout would go to a shrink anyway. His teachers had made him go to a school psychologist when he was younger, to talk about his behavior problems. Let’s just say that it hadn’t gone well. The woman had acted like they were buddies, like she had any idea what Scout was dealing with, like any of the advice she gave him would actually help in a real life situation. He hadn’t gone back a second time.

He sighed. Slipping back underneath the covers he made a deal with himself. If he couldn’t find a solution to his problem till the end of the month he would have to go ask Medic if there was anything he could do, no matter how much he didn’t want to do it.

Scout closed his eyes.

Cat kept purring next to him long after Scout had fallen back asleep.

* * *

Scout didn’t know whether to be happy or annoyed.

The week had started with a thunderstorm. Now, normally a little rain was not enough reason to cancel any matches, and that was the case this time as well, or at least it was at first… But then it kept raining. And it kept raining the next day as well. By the third day the entire battle field had been reduced to mud and water and the rain was still coming down, so, finally, on that evening they received the announcement that all matches would be canceled until the end of the week and, depending on the state of the battle field, would start back up sometime next week.

Now on one hand, this was great news, because Scout could try and get some rest. At this point he could barely get through the day without taking a nap halfway through. Dark circles sat under his eyes and his hands hadn’t stopped shaking for the past three days. He was completely strung out, jumping at every little sound or movement.

And that’s the reason why this wasn’t very great news at all. It was still raining outside, for the fourth day in a row now, (which was highly unusual for this part of New Mexico) and that meant that absolutely everyone, with the exception of Sniper, was confined to the base.

Normally this wouldn’t bother Scout at all. He had lived in a cramped space with eight other people half his life. But as jumpy as he was now, he wasn’t sure he would be able to stand it, unless he spent all of his time up in his room.

But he had already been doing that for almost half a month, and then he at least had the excuse of wanting some time for himself after battles. Now, with no fighting going on, him sitting up in his room when normally he would be hanging out with everyone, no matter if they wanted to hang out with him or not, it would be, well… weird. Suspicious.

But the thought of hanging out with everybody—it was exhausting. He would get tired probably within minutes, and then that tiredness would turn into irritation and then into anger and then—well, he’d probably end up blowing up at someone. Someone who probably wouldn’t deserve it. Then he would feel guilty.

Then he would spend his time feeling guilty as well as tired and then it would probably cycle back around to anger, and ‘round and ‘round in circles it would go until everyone else was angry as well.

Eight angry guys who killed for a living being stuck in the same base probably wasn’t an ideal situation.

So yeah, this wasn’t a very great thing at all.

Scout figured that he could try and get away with only coming to eat for a day or two before people started getting suspicious and hopefully he would feel better by then. Or at least good enough to actually spend some time with his teammates. 

Another small comfort was the fact that because of the rain Cat had been hanging out in Scout’s room almost constantly, instead of just visiting on evenings. He still slipped out here and there, but mostly he was napping on Scouts bed or in one of the emptier boxes by the far wall. Or he was chasing one thing or another across the room, making it an even bigger mess than it already was.

It was only slightly irritating. Mostly it was amusing and even calming. At least Scout had someone to talk to when he got tired of reading comics. Cat even meowed back sometimes, as if he could understand what Scout was saying.

It was cute.

It made him feel better, and these days he seemed to be running short on things that did that.

The rainy weather didn’t help either, only bringing his mood down further and making him even more unmotivated to do absolutely anything other than lay in bed all day.

And that’s exactly how he spent both Thursday and Friday—just lying in bed and staring up at the ceiling, the sound of rain pattering against the window filling his ears. He did leave the room for breakfast and dinner, and he also slunk down to the kitchen around lunch time to get some snacks, but those were the only times the rest of the team got to see their youngest member.

That’s what he was doing on Saturday morning as well—just lying in bed, listening to the clock ticking besides him, seconds, minutes, hours passing while he lay frozen on his bed. He wasn’t feeling much better even after spending two days in a row mostly in a horizontal position, but maybe he would feel better tomorrow.

Third time’s the charm and all that.

A knock at his door around 11 a.m. disturbed his plan for that day.

First he considered just ignoring it, but then he considered the fact that his teammates had a tendency to just barge in anyway, consideration for other people’s privacy nonexistent. So instead he just sighed loudly before dragging himself out of bed and then throwing a quick glance around the room to see if Cat was hanging around at this time.

He was not.

Having confirmed that he slunk to the door and cracked it open just enough to see who had decided to mess up his peaceful nap-but-not-quite. It was Medic.

“Guten Morgen Herr Scout,” he said all too cheerily. “I hope I did not disturb you.”

“Uh, you didn’t…” Scout said slowly, mistrustful of Medic’s entirely too happy demeanor.

“Gut, gut. Erm… may I come in for a second? I wanted to discuss something with you,” he said next, eagerly inching closer to the door.

“Now, uh, now is not really a good time, so… maybe tomorrow?” Scout said, moving to close the door, but Medic was faster, clearly expecting Scout to do just that, managing to stick his foot in the gap between the door and doorframe before Scout could close it.

They were both silent for a bit. Silent enough for the ticking of the clock in Scouts room to filter through, mixed with the tapping of the rain.

“Now would be best, actually.” Medic’s brows were furrowed now, expression serious. “If you do not want me to come in, we can talk here.”

He stepped back a bit, giving Scout more space to move forward and reluctantly Scout did just that, but not before throwing an annoyed look Medics way.

“Sure, fine, what did you want?” he said, resting one shoulder against the doorframe, letting the annoyance show in his voice.

The clock ticked on in the background.

“Well we, the team that is, we noticed that you have not been spending as much time doing, well, the activities that you usually do. You haven’t been going on your morning runs, and uh, your scores have been dropping. You missed breakfast this morning—” And shit, had he? “—quite tired, and… We are… concerned…” Medic said those last words slowly, as if he was unsure if that was the right thing to say.

It wasn’t. Scout immediately tensed, crossing his hands in front of his chest, expression falling for a second, before quickly brightening in a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“Concerned? What’re you concerned about?” Scout asked in what he hoped was a nonchalant tone.

“Don’t play dumb, junge,” he said, voice serious. “Are you alright?”

Was he alright? Of course not. He knew very well how not alright he was. And it would be so easy to tell Medic everything right now. To tell him about the sleeplessness and the nightmares. About being jumpy and irritable and so fucking tired all the time. To tell him about how he didn’t want to wear his dog tags for fear of them getting caught somewhere and choking him. And oh god the choking. Waking up in the middle of the night not being able to breathe, running on the field and not being able to breathe, doing anything and _not being able to breathe_.

He wanted to tell him. Wanted to beg Medic to fix it—fix _him._ But he couldn’t get the words out. They stuck in his throat like the blood in his nightmares, thick and sticky and disgusting. And it felt too much like being choked.

And suddenly the ticking of the clock was filling his ears, his heartbeat pounding. He could hear every little sound at it was overwhelming him. It all felt too loud, too much.

Medic was still waiting for an answer, looking at him expectantly. Concern was shining in his eyes and Scout hated it.

“I’m fine Doc,” he finally grunted out before backing up and slamming the door shut in Medic’s face.

The sound of the door slamming hung in the air, before slowly quietening and taking the rest of the noise with it. Scout turned and rested his back against the door before sliding down to the ground and pulling his knees to his chest, wrapping his arms around them. Once he heard Medic’s steps finally retreating away from the door he let out a muffled frustrated scream.

The clock kept ticking.

* * *

No-one tried talking to him outside of mealtimes after Medic’s failed attempt. And Scout just kept floating through the days, not really doing anything besides eating and sleeping. Or _trying_ to sleep.

Matches resumed by Wednesday the next week, battlefield having mostly dried out in the heat once the rain had finally stopped. The ground was still wet in the few places where the sun’s rays couldn’t reach it, shallow muddy puddles hiding beneath bridges and fallen wooden beams. But mostly everything had gone back to its usual level of dryness and dustiness, wind sweeping the sand across the battlefield and into people’s eyes once more.

Scout sort of floated through the battles as well. He tried paying attention, tried concentrating, but that just made him hyper sensitive to every little noise and movement and by the end of the day he was completely burnt out from the constant overstimulation.

So he just turned himself off instead. He knew the motions, could shoot and reload without thinking. He let his body do the work while his mind floated elsewhere. It worked well enough and as long as he did a good enough job, no-one would question him too much.

The result was him just sort of existing, while not being entirely there. He stopped noting the days on the calendar, all of them blurring together without any discernable difference. He didn’t even notice when the end of the month came and went, his promise to himself long lost in the thick fog in his mind. He barely left his room outside of meals and battles.

Even Cat couldn’t bring him out of this—this state that he had gotten himself into. The only times he felt like he was there were the moments after he got out of respawn after dying out on the field, the fog from his mind receding for a few minutes before he pushed it back to the front.

He felt more like a shell than anything else.

Occasionally he would get an attack. Mostly during the night, but every now and then one would happen during the day as well. It was weird though, they weren’t the same as when he got them in the middle of the night. These ones were accompanied with weird flashes of dark rooms and the scent of blood even when there was none.

He had gotten one when he’d been helping with cleaning up after dinner and Soldier had unexpectedly put him in a headlock, clearly trying to be playful but all Scout felt in that moment was undiluted fear. His vision had gone dark and he had felt a rope wrapping around his neck and tightening, making tears spring to his eyes. He had blinked and the flash was gone but the fear stayed—coiled around him like the rope he had felt just moments ago.

He had quickly retreated to his room where he preceded to break down.

So in all honesty, he should have expected one to occur during a match. But he hadn’t really spent his time thinking about it much, hadn’t spent his time thinking about much in general.

And so, when it finally struck, he wasn’t prepared to deal with it—not that he was much more prepared any other time, but he had sort of figured out what helped and what didn’t.

Scout wasn’t sure what had caused it. He thought that it might have been his shirt getting caught on a nail as he ducked under the bridge to get out of enemy fire. Maybe it was something else. All he knows is that one moment he was running, gun in hand ready to fire at anything that came at him, and the next his vision had gone fuzzy and when he blinked his eyes he wasn’t on the battlefield anymore.

Instead he was lying on his stomach, in a pool of his own blood, trying and failing to pull in a breath into his tattered lungs. Everything around him was cold, making goosebumps appear on his exposed arms. The blood was soaking into his clothes, making them stick to his skin. He tried crawling forward, but his arms were weak beneath him, slipping on the blood and getting coated in red.

Then something was grabbing him from behind and lifting him by the scruff of his shirt. He immediately began struggling, self-preservation instincts kicking in but he still couldn’t breathe so the best he could manage were a few weak wiggles and a halfhearted jab at whatever was at his back.

His elbow made contact with something solid behind him and maybe the jab wasn’t as weak as he thought, because then there was a low grunt before he was being dropped back down to the ground, the impact jarring his arms and knees. But before he could try and scramble away, the same arms were wrapping around his shoulders and spinning him around, shaking him roughly.

He closed his eyes, breathing harshly, expecting for whoever it was that had caught him to finally kill him, but nothing came. Scout opened his eyes and this time he was temporarily blinded by the sun shining directly into them. He quickly closed them and then blinked a few times rapidly, trying to clear his vision. It cleared and he finally noticed what, or rather who, it was that was holding him.

Spy was crouched before him, both of his hands resting on his shoulders heavily, eyes serious and brows furrowed. His mouth was moving but Scout couldn’t hear anything past the pounding of his heart in his ears. And he still couldn’t breathe.

Spy must have understood that something was not how it should be, because his mouth formed a thin line, before something like worry and concern showed on his face (except it couldn’t have, Spy didn’t get worried for anyone) and then he was moving, clutching at Scout’s shirt and pulling him up and away from under the bridge.

Scout stumbled along as best as he could in his state, not really paying attention to his surroundings, only focusing on trying to pull in air. He followed to where Spy was pulling him and after a while, or maybe just a moment (his sense of time had gone completely whack) he felt the ground change from sandy rock to wood. Then Spy’s hands were resting on his shoulders again, pushing him down to the wooden floor, before crouching in front of Scout once more.

He was still breathing hard, and his arms had begun to shake. Spy was talking again but it was hard to concentrate on anything. Everything felt scattered. He absently wished that Cat was here.

“—out, Scout! _Merde!_ Scout, listen to me, you need to _breathe._ You need to slow your breathing, try to match with mine,” Spy’s voice finally filtered through the ringing in his ears and he desperately held on to the sound of it, trying to tether himself.

“Breathe in for four, hold for two, then breathe out for four. Come on, Scout,” he said again, voice filled with worry, and that couldn’t be right. Scout must have been mishearing things, Spy was always keeping his calm, always too cool to let any emotion show through.

Still, he tried doing what Spy was telling him to do. He watched Spy’s chest rise and fall, listened to him count and tried to match his own breathing to it as best as he could. It didn’t quite work at first, and a few times he felt it speeding up which in turn made him panic more, but eventually he managed to slow it down.

Spy kept talking even when his breathing had gone back to normal, and Scout just sat for a while and listened to him speaking in French, not minding the fact that he couldn’t understand a thing, just grateful for the comfort the low muttering tone was bringing him. It gave him something to focus on.

Once he felt relatively okay the sounds from the battle finally filtered through to him, making him jump just a bit, since all he had been focusing on for the past ten? twenty? minutes was Spy’s voice and the sound of his own breathing. The sounds of the gunshots and explosions felt incredibly loud to him now, and he couldn’t help but flinch whenever one sounded just a bit too close to where they were hiding.

Of course Spy noticed him jump, not that he was trying to be very subtle. In this state of mind Scout couldn’t fake anything. He heard Spy mutter something to himself, quietly enough for Scout not to hear and then he was standing up, pulling Scout up with him.

Scout felt unsteady and out of fear of toppling over he clutched at Spy’s arm to steady himself. Later he would feel embarrassed about it, but in this moment all he wanted was to feel grounded and safe.

Then Spy was pulling him out of their hiding place, which Scout now noticed was a small half-destroyed wooden building that looked like it would topple over at any moment. It made him anxious now, thinking about sitting in there while a battle was going on. It could have collapsed. His breath hitched at that thought. It could have collapsed and he would have been trapped and—nope. He was not going to think about that right now.

He focused on not tripping while running across the field, Spy dragging him god knows where. Speaking of which…

“Hey uhh, where are we goin’?” Scout gasped out, hoping that it was loud enough for Spy to hear over the sound of gunshots, but not loud enough to attract unwanted attention.

“To respawn,” he replied before pushing Scout into a small crevice in the rocky wall and then positioning himself in front of him. “And then I’m taking you back to the base.”

“Back to the bas—“ Scout silenced himself when he heard footsteps approaching and only spoke up once he was sure the owner of them was far enough away. “Back to the base? We’re in the middle of battle!” he hissed.

“Yes, and you are not fit to fight in this state,” Spy hissed back before moving out of hiding and pulling Scout along once more. “You will hinder us more than you will help.”

Scout couldn’t really argue with that, but that didn’t mean that he liked the idea. Leaving in the middle of battle was not something The Administrator was going to like either.

They turned around a corner and finally Scout recognized the place they were running through, the RED team respawn coming into view among the sandy red stone. He saw Medic and Heavy running their way, probably eager to get back in the fight, but they hesitated once they noticed Spy and Scout coming their way.

He saw Medic pause, probably itching to ask what was the matter, but Spy gave him a _look_ and he seemed to understand what Spy meant with it. Medic looked at Scout for one more second before he motioned for Heavy to keep going, and then the both of them were hurrying along, Medic throwing one more concerned look Scouts way before they disappeared around a corner.

Spy pushed Scout forward before he could ask what that was about, and then he was stumbling into respawn, tripping and almost face planting on the ground, but Spy managed to catch him by the arm and save him from what might have been a concussion at worst and a mild headache at best.

Just then Sniper materialized in the room and upon noticing them only raised one eyebrow before shrugging and jogging back out to the field. Spy was still holding Scout by the arm, probably not trusting him to make his way over to the teleporter on his own. Together they made their way to the teleporter, but before Scout could get on it Spy pulled him back a little and gave him a hard look, mouth pulled in a thin line and brows furrowed.

“You will go back to base and then, once todays match is over, you will go to Medic and you _will_ tell him everything,” he said, tone serious, entirely too similar to his Ma when she scolded him for doing something dumb.

He merely nodded before getting on the teleporter, letting the familiar sensation of getting teleported to take over. In a blink he was standing all alone in the teleporter room of the base. A chill went down his spine. Only then did he realize that his clothes were muddy and still a bit wet, probably from falling in a puddle when he fell out on the field. He scrubbed off the mud that had already dried, but he didn’t really feel like changing out of his clothes—felt too tired to do it.

Instead he made his way over to his room, the familiar bone deep tiredness of experiencing the attack settling in. Once he opened the door the first thing he noticed was Cat lazily lying on the bed, paws stretched out as far as they would go. Upon hearing the door open Cat perked up, lifting his head and sending a small inquiring purr Scouts way.

“Hey Whiskers, I’m back early today,” Scout sighed before flopping onto the bed next to Cat, rocking the mattress a little. “Wanna keep me company for—” he checked the clock, “—for four hours?”

Cat just let out another purr before flipping onto his back, paws raised to the ceiling.

“Yeah, I think I’ll sleep too, if you don’t mind,” he murmured against the bedsheets before crawling towards his pillows and snuggling against them.

Cat didn’t answer.

* * *

Scout woke to knocking at his door. Groggily he sat up just a bit, disturbing Cat who had managed to drape himself across Scouts stomach. The sun was shining in through his window illuminating the dust motes that were lazily floating around the room. He looked at the clock—3.24 p.m. Why was he in bed? The match ended twenty four minutes ago, had he slept through it?

And then it all came back—going to the fight in the morning, having a freak out in the middle of the battle, _Spy seeing him have it_.

Another knock came from the door followed by Spy’s voice calling his name. Scout ran a hand over his face before swinging his legs over the side of the bed. Before he could get up and go towards the door, it opened on its own, Spy standing in the doorway.

“Jeez man, you couldn’t wait a few more seconds?” Scout said, getting up from the bed.

“No I could not, you have been pu—wait… is that a cat?” he asked, both eyebrows rising, surprise clear on his face.

“Oh uh, yeah, this is ummm, this is Cat. Cat, meet Spy, Spy, meet Cat,” Scout introduced after a second of hesitation, gesturing between Cat and Spy. Cat looked up, interest piqued by the new person that was standing just outside the room. Still laying on his side, he stretched out before rolling over on his stomach and sitting up, curiously watching Spy.

Spy stared back. Then he looked at Scout.

“You named the cat, Cat?” he asked incredulously, eyebrows impossibly going even higher, practically disappearing under his mask.

“Yeah… Look I’m not good with names alright,” Scout defended crossing his arms in front of his chest. “And Cat seemed to like the name.”

Cat chose that exact moment to jump down from the bed and nuzzle against Scouts leg. Scout proceeded to throw a smug look Spy’s way at that. Spy only sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, muttering something to himself in French.

“Anyway, I came to tell you that Medic is waiting for you in the infirmary,” he said, looking up at Scout again. “And to make sure that you actually get there.”

“Oh uh, right… Um, can you wait a second? I need to change out of my clothes,” Scout answered, demeanor falling noticeably.

“Sure, whatever,” Spy said, turning and pulling out a cigarette from his disguise case.

Scout closed the door to get some privacy and went to his closet to pull out a clean set of clothes. He took off his shirt and pants, which were both caked in dry mud that was peeling away from the fabric now, large flakes falling to the ground in a messy pile. It looked like he would have to clean out his room afterwards as well. Once he was done changing he went back to the door, hand raising to twist the doorknob, but then he faltered. For a minute he just stared at the knob, as if it was the scariest thing he had ever seen in his life.

He was startled out of his daze by cat brushing against his legs. Scout shook himself off before twisting the knob and opening the door. Spy was leaning against the wall by the door, holding a lit cigarette between his fingers. Scout stepped out of the room and moved to close the door, but before he could do so, Cat quickly slipped out of the room, moving to stand next to Scout.

Scout stared at him.

Cat had never tried going with Scout whenever he left the room. He always just kept doing what he was doing, entirely uninterested about where it was, that Scout was going off to. Cat looked up at him as if asking, _‘what? Can’t I come as well?’_

Scout looked at Spy, who was looking between him and the cat with something like curiosity.

“Doc doesn’t have anything against cats, does he?” Scout asked him.

Spy only shrugged before pushing off of the wall and beginning to walk towards the infirmary. Scout stared at Cat for another second, then finally closed the door to his room and jogged a little to catch back up with Spy, who was already nearing the stairs that led to the first floor.

Once he was caught up, he glanced over his shoulder to check up on Cat and sure enough, he was sauntering after Scout, footsteps inaudible. And like that the three of them made their way through the base—Spy leading the way, Scout not far behind him and Cat bringing up the rear. It was actually quite comforting.

But even despite Cat’s comforting presence behind him, as they neared the infirmary doors Scout felt his stomach turning uncomfortably and he found his steps faltering. Spy did not slow down however, instead determinately walking towards the doors and holding them open, waiting for Scout to walk through first (probably to make sure he didn’t just run off, which he _was_ considering).

Scout pulled in a breath and then marched forward, through the doors and into the brightly lit room beyond them. The scent of disinfectant hung in the air, as well as the smell of some other cleaning supplies and a barely noticeable hint of blood. The smell registered in Scouts brain as the smell of a hospital. He had only visited the hospital once in his life and the memories associated with that visit were not pleasant ones.

There were various medical instruments laid out on the tables and surfaces that filled the room. Weird contraptions and tubes filled with colorful liquids lined the dark wooden shelves. Various graphs and posters of the human body and all sort of other drawings covered the walls. Medic’s desk, which stood by the far wall, was absolutely covered in paperwork, barely any space left for anything else on it. Medic himself was sitting at the desk, slumped over a stack of papers, head in his hands.

He looked up once he heard Scout enter, followed by Spy.

“Ah, Herr Scout, I was waiting for—is that a cat?” Medic asked, eyebrows raising, mimicking the look Spy had gotten less than five minutes ago.

“Um, yeah… You don’t mind him being here, do you?” Scout asked hesitantly, fidgeting with the hem of his shirt.

Medic raised one eyebrow at him.

“If it makes you feel more comfortable, no I don’t mind.” He got up from the chair and walked forward before resting his hip against the examination table in the middle of the room. “Just make sure he doesn’t knock anything over.”

There was a pause as no-one in the room said anything for a few seconds.

“So,” said Medic, looking at Scout expectantly.

“So…” echoed Scout, pointedly not looking at Medic and shifting on his feet uneasily. He could feel both, Medic and Spy looking at him, but he couldn’t bring himself to speak up, waiting for someone else to break the tense silence of the room.

“Is there anything you want to tell us?” prompted Medic, still looking at Scout.

Scout shrugged. “Not particularly, no.”

Spy whacked the side of his head.

“What, I don’t! I’m only here because Spy low-key threatened me,” he answered, jabbing an elbow in Spy’s direction, which he swiftly avoided.

“I did not threaten him,” Spy huffed, crossing his arms.

Medic merely shook his head, expression unreadable.

“Why don’t you sit down and we can talk about… what’s been going on with you,” he said, patting the examination table next to him.

Scout fidgeted with his hands, then moved to take a step forward, but right as he reached the table Cat darted past him and jumped up onto the metal table, sliding forward a bit with momentum. Then he just turned around and brushed against Medic’s side. Medic looked down at the cat and then took a step back, going back to sit at his desk. Spy stayed where he was—in front of the doors out of the infirmary, effectively blocking Scout’s only way out.

So, with nothing better to do, Scout just hopped up on the table next to Cat, one hand rising to scratch him under the chin.

Medic picked up a clipboard and a pen, clicking it once and then positioning it over the paper in his hands. “So?”

Scout hesitated, not really sure where to start and he said as much to Medic.

“Tell me what has been bothering you,” Medic said and before Scout could answer he spoke up again. “And don’t bother telling me that you’re fine, because you are clearly _not_.”

“Right ummm… Well uh, I’ve been getting these uh… nightmares, which I know is normal, we all get them, but these ones are worse, and I keep getting them every night and then when I wake up I have these freak outs where I can’t breathe and I feel panicky and, uh, I feel scared and like I’m dying? I guess that would be a good description of that. I thought it was asthma at first, but it mostly happens only after the nightmares and sometimes during the day as well. I don’t know what they are, but they—“

“Panic attacks,” Spy interrupted from behind him.

“Wh—what?” Scout asked, looking at him in confusion.

“Panic attacks. The thing you are describing, the thing you had today out on the field, those are panic attacks. Am I correct, Doctor?” Spy said, directing that last part at Medic.

“Ja, those do sound like panic attacks. For how long have you been getting them?” Medic asked, writing something down on the paper in front of him. He glanced up when Scout didn’t answer immediately.

Scout shrugged, mentally trying to figure out how much time had passed since the first time he had gotten the attack.

“About two and a half months, maybe a bit more? I got one a bit after we cleaned up the whole mess with the robots and came back to the base, and then after that nothing really happened for a while, so I thought it was a one-time thing, but then I got another one after about a month? And then they became more frequent after that.” He shrugged again, swinging his feet idly.

Cat was happily purring beside him.

“And the nightmares you mentioned, what are they about?” Medic asked, still writing stuff down, pen scratching against the paper.

“Uh, dying mostly? But not dying out on the field, it’s about me dying, uh—about me dying when we were fighting the robots. And it’s not just me dying either, it’s usually me choking to death. Sometimes I get um—I get hung or I, I choke on my own blood or uh…” he hesitated, fidgeted with the hem of his shirt, then with the athletic bandages around his hands. “Uh, some—sometimes it’s one of you guys killing me, but mostly—mostly it’s Spy…” he finally muttered quietly, throwing a quick glance Spy’s way, and looking back down to the ground.

Spy’s expression was unreadable.

No-one said anything for a while, the only sound in the room being Cat’s purring.

“And erm, is there anything else?” Medic finally asked after a long silence.

“M’ just tired all the time, an’ I’ve been really jumpy lately, an’ everything is too loud all the time. An’ sometimes when one of you move too quick or appear next to me suddenly without warning I uh, I think it’s something else coming at me and that’s kinda scary. It’s like for a moment my brain forgets where it is,” he said, clenching and unclenching his hands which had begun to shake.

Cat was still purring.

“These flashes—you get them often?”

“Um, not very, and they’re usually quite short. Today uh, today I got one that was much longer than usual. I think it’s what caused the panic attack or it was something else that caused the panic attack and the panic attack caused the flash? I don’t know, I don’t really think clearly during them, it’s just—“ he gestured with his hands vaguely, “—just pure terror. Like I’m really dying even if I know that I’m not.”

Medic hummed and said nothing.

“So Doc, what’s wrong with me?” Scout asked, trying for a joking tone, but failing miserably when his voice broke on the last word.

Medic clicked off the pen and put away the clipboard. “Have you heard of er… Spy help me out here, what’s the English equivalent for—” and he muttered some phrase in German.

Spy thought for a moment. “PTSD?” he offered.

“Ja, thank you. Scout, have you heard of PTSD?”

Scout just blinked, mind drawing a blank. “Uh, is that some new drug or something?”

Medic sighed and muttered something to himself in German. There was a rustling sound as Spy made his way over to where Medic sat, glancing at the papers that covered the desk.

“What about shell shock?” he asked, idly flipping through some sort of folder, obviously not really paying attention to what it contained.

Scout knew about shell shock alright. Knew because his history teacher had talked about it in detail when discussing World War II. Told them all about soldiers who lost their sense of smell or taste, how they had breakdowns for no apparent reasons, how it reduced even the strongest people to a trembling, shaking mess. Knew because when his second oldest brother, Tommy (the one that actually came back from the war), had returned home he was never the same. Knew because when they went out to watch the fireworks on New Year’s Eve when he was sixteen, the first year when Tommy was back from deployment, Tommy broke down at the first explosion. His big strong older brother, who had fought soldiers and survived, had crumbled like a stack of cards.

“What, you think that’s what this is? Shell shock?” Scout asked incredulously. “We’ve been going out and fighting every day for years and none of us have had any problems with it, so why would it just show up now? And only for me?”

Medic glanced at Spy before speaking up. “It was probably triggered by you dying during the robot war. It was not the same as dying here and no matter how much you deny it, it was traumatic. You were dead and even though you came back it still affected you. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, junge.”

Scout was breathing harshly, chest rising and falling but not out of fear this time. “So, so what? That’s it? I die once for real an’ now I’m fucked up forever!? How is that fair, I—I’ve been doing just fine for years, why should this be any different?” He was working himself up, he knew, but he was just so angry all of a sudden. White hot anger was coursing through his veins, making him see red at the _unfairness_ of it all.

“That’s such bullshit.”

Cat bumped his head against Scout’s arm making him jump. Scout lifted one leg up on the table and wrapped his arms around it. It made him feel like a little kid, but it also made him feel just a bit better about this whole _situation_.

“Can’t you just… can’t you just make it go away?” he asked, voice small. He knew, deep down he _knew_ that there was nothing that Medic could do, but he couldn’t help but ask, desperation seeping into his voice. “You have your fancy medigun, can’t you just use it and fix me? It can heal open wounds, why couldn’t it just fix this too?”

Neither Spy nor Medic were looking at him and that was all the answer that he needed. His shoulders sagged, expression falling. He ran one hand down his face and over his mouth. Even Cat seemed to understand the situation that had been presented to Scout as he had stopped purring. Now he just sat next to Scout, eyes flicking from one person to another.

There was a solemn silence.

Medic sighed, “I could try setting something up, some form of therapy—“

Scout was already shaking his head no, bringing his other leg up and resting his chin against his knees. “No, no way.” He would rather suffer from nightmares for the rest of his life than admit that he needed to see a shrink.

“Alright, well… I can prescribe you some form of medication—to help with the sleeping problems and some of the other symptoms. But Scout, listen to me,” Medic leaned forward a bit at that, looked directly at Scout, expression much too serious for Scout’s liking, “this will not make it just go away. I will be completely honest here—it probably won’t go away for a long time. But you need to stop pulling away from us. No more hiding in your room and isolating yourself, it won’t help. We’re your teammates, we want to help but you need to let us help you.”

Scout nodded slowly, trying to process everything that had been said to him in the last ten minutes. He let out a shaky exhale before he uncurled from his position and got down from the table. He turned and picked up Cat, who hadn’t moved from his position next to Scout.

“Is that all? Can I go now?” Scout asked quietly.

Medic nodded, “Ja, yes, you can go. I will come by later to give you the medication.”

Scout gave another nod before turning and walking toward the doors, Cat still cradled in his arms. Spy muttered something to Medic quietly before he too followed Scout out the door. Once they were out of the infirmary Spy rested one hand on Scout’s shoulder.

“It’s true you know—we really do care for you, _I_ care for you, as loud and obnoxious as you are,” he said, squeezing Scout’s shoulder once before moving past him and walking down the hallway.

Scout just stared after him until he disappeared from sight, one hand idly scratching Cat under the chin.

For once, Cat was completely silent in his arms.

* * *

Scout woke to the sound of his alarm ringing.

He blinked his eyes open and just stared at the ceiling for a little while. The sun was already up outside, and though it was not shining in his room, wouldn’t until about midday, it gave off enough light for him to see everything in his room clearly. There was a yawn to his right, then he felt the mattress dip and then Cat was stepping on his stomach, paws kneading into his soft skin.

“Morning, Whiskers,” Scout muttered, scratching Cat on the head. Cat began purring loud and happy, said whiskers quivering from the vibration of it, eyes squinting closed in satisfaction. He moved closer to Scout’s face and bumped his head against Scout’s nose, before laying back down on Scout’s stomach.

“No buddy, I’m sorry, but I gotta get up,” Scout said, moving to sit up and in turn making Cat get up as well. He ran a hand across Cat’s back, stopping to scratch near the base of Cat’s tail. Cat just moved towards the edge of the bed, stopping to enjoy the scratching for a few seconds before jumping down and walking to sit in front of the door of the room.

Ever since he first accompanied Scout out of the room, Cat had begun wandering around the base more and more, often walking with Scout but sometimes also running off on his own. The only place which he was barred from was Medic’s room, in order to make sure that Archimedes didn’t meet an untimely end. Everyone on the team enjoyed having Cat around, and Cat absolutely loved all the attention he got from all of them, not to mention the food he now constantly got courtesy of Demo’s soft spot for animals.

Scout got out of the bed and put on his dog tags before moving to his closet to pull out a clean set of clothes and get ready for the day. He got dressed, put on his hand wraps and grabbed his cap before moving towards the door, pushing it open and letting Cat slip out before following after him. As always, Cat accompanied Scout down the stairs, but after that he went off to the common area, while Scout made for the exit of the base.

The air outside was still cool, not yet warmed up, especially in the shade. The sky was completely clear, not a cloud in sight. Scout took a deep breath before taking off at a run, feet pounding into the sandy ground, leaving a trail of dust in his wake.

He had missed this—running in the morning, when mostly everyone was still asleep and the only thing he had for company were the crickets and the sun. A light breeze blew across his face, picking up the sand and carrying it far across the rocky canyon that surrounded the base. Scout let his body work on autopilot as he ran, not worrying about where he was going, just enjoying the sensation of running. Relished in the feeling of the wind messing up his hair and the sun warming his skin. He ran until the air turned from brisk to sweltering, until the chirping of the crickets was replaced by the calls of the red-tailed hawks that nested in the canyon. Until his lungs began to sting and his legs started burning, and then he ran some more for good measure, before finally returning back to the base.

The air inside the base was pleasantly cool compared to the heat of the desert outside, air conditioning making sure they didn’t die from heat stroke while going through their daily tasks.

Scout made his way over to the kitchen, hunger already having made itself known when he was still out and running. There was the sound of something sizzling coming from the doorway, accompanied by a muted murmur of voices and the sound of footsteps. He entered the room.

Engie was standing by the stove cooking something on the pan, spatula held in his right hand. His back rested against the wooden surface of the counter and he was chatting with Medic, who sat at the table, legs crossed.

“Mornin’ Hardhat, mornin’ Doc,” Scout said cheerily as he entered the kitchen and plopped himself down at the table.

“Mornin’ Scooter,” replied Engie, turning to flip over whatever it was that he was cooking.

“So what’s for breakfast today?”

“Pancakes,” said Engie, flipping another pancake over.

Scout grinned. “Sweet!”

Engie leaned back against the counter and picked up where he left off in his conversation with Medic, turning to the stove every now and then to check on the pancakes. Scout lazily listened to their conversation, not really paying attention to what exactly they were talking about, not smart enough for their fancy science talk anyways. Slowly one by one the rest of the team started showing up and sitting down around the table, making small talk with each other while everyone waited for Engie to finish cooking breakfast. Even Sniper showed up. At some point Cat wandered into the kitchen as well, brushing between everyone’s legs and croaking small meows in the hopes of begging some food off of someone. The only one missing was Spy, but that wasn’t a big surprise.

Once the pancakes were done, Engie set them down on the table before taking a seat between Demo and Pyro. Everyone started digging in, still chattering about one thing or another. Engie and Medic were still discussing the same thing and this time Demo joined in on their conversation. Pyro seemed to be having a conversation with Soldier, although Scout wasn’t completely sure that Soldier actually knew what Pyro was saying.

Sniper was just quietly sipping his coffee, not particularly interested in starting a conversation with anyone, and Heavy was quietly eating next to Medic Cat happily seated on his shoulders, watching Heavy’s fork move between his mouth and the plate with great interest. For once Scout was also sitting and eating quietly, choosing to listen to the ongoing conversations instead of starting one of his own.

Something moved behind him and without warning Spy appeared next to him, moving much too close to Scouts right side and Scout froze, eyes going wide. The blood froze in his veins and his breath hitched in his throat. The scar on his side burned. Suddenly the sounds of the conversations around him disappeared and he wasn’t at the table anymore, instead he was sitting against a wall, everything dark and cold around him, blood coating his hands, coating his side, rising in his throat—and then there was a hand, Spy’s hand, squeezing his shoulder tightly, bringing him back to the present.

He took a deep breath, and then another, willing for his hands to stop shaking. The sound faded back in, no-one except Spy having noticed that anything was amiss, everyone still chatting and laughing.

Spy looked at him, hand still on his shoulder.

“I—I’m alright, I’m good” Scout breathed and sent a shaky smile Spy’s way.

Spy nodded once before removing his hand from Scout shoulder and moving to take the free seat next to Sniper.

Scout’s hand still trembled when he picked up his fork, but he found that he had meant what he had said—he was alright. Spy _had_ spooked him, but he was fine. Maybe not completely fine, he probably wouldn’t be completely fine for a long time, probably not _ever_ , but he was doing much better.

Scout smiled to himself and took a bite of his food, watching as Demo tried and failed to sneakily slip a bit of pancake to the floor for Cat and then Medic was slapping Demo’s arm and scolding him for overfeeding the cat.

He was alright.

* * *

_Although you may feel like giving up_

_It’s not the only road_

_The path less often traveled_

_Holds the highest, the highest of hopes_

_-Shawn James_

**Author's Note:**

> So, this whole thing began with me wanting to write Scout having a panic attack and then it evolved from there into this monstrosity. It was originally supposed to be only like 6k words, but then I started writing and well, apparently I'm really bad at determining how many words it takes to write something. 
> 
> This is my first tf2 fic and honestly probably my first proper fic in general as I haven't done much writing before, since, as I already mentioned, I'm an artist and not a writer. But now that I've written this I might actually start writing more often :D. So there might be a few shorter fics from me featuring Cat and Scout and maybe some other characters as well, but I make no promises. 
> 
> The art for this fic was done by yours truly and if you would like to see more of my art you can drop by my tumblr which is @maiiyoz. It's mostly fanart for other fandoms, but I do try to reblog tf2 content as well. You can also drop by to say hi :) 
> 
> Also shoutout to my sister who decided to read this fic only because it's something I wrote and without knowing a thing about tf2 lore - Skap, you're the best!


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